


One Dark Night in Bodmin

by Slantedlight (BySlantedlight)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9339452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BySlantedlight/pseuds/Slantedlight
Summary: The lads are after an errant villain, and they end up all the way to Bodmin Jail to find him.





	

Rain spattered hard against the windscreen as they drove into Bodmin, blurring the Christmas-coloured lights that outlined pub windows and spiralled thinly upwards on the windswept tree in what Bodie supposed was the town square. He flicked on the wipers, and the road became clear again, dark and empty, everyone cosily inside and stuffing themselves with good cheer on this twenty-fifth of December. 

Except them.

"They'll never find him now _sir_ , he'll be as far as Bodmin by now, _sir_ ," Doyle mimicked from the passenger seat, stealing his thoughts as he always did, voicing what Bodie couldn't complain about. "Why the _'ell_ did you 'ave to say that to the old man?"

Bodie ignored him, slowing down to try and work out the wriggles and tangles of streets. Murdoch would avoid the houses, wouldn't try and find shelter there - not even the darkened shops or church or town hall, just in case someone came in. He'd never liked the company of other people much, being in prison must nearly have killed him.

_"Well since you know so much about him, 3.7, you won't mind retrieving him from where ever it is you think he'll be hiding, will you? And take your earstwhile companion there with you."_

He'd complained then, of course he had, not that it had done them any good. And they _were_ on standby, it was just that standby usually meant a rowdy Christmas day in the breakroom, with a pack of cards and some surreptitious cans of lager, _not_ staggering around the god-forsaken moors looking for escaped prisoners. And Murdoch, of all people, _Murdoch_...

Beside him, Doyle was opening the map, turning on the overhead light, and Bodie pulled over properly, just where they were. It wasn't as if they were going to be in anyone's way, after all, not at this time of night.

"What d'you reckon, then?"

He leaned over the handbrake, propping himself slightly against Doyle's shoulder, feeling the warmth of him through his woollen jacket. He could smell him too, what was left of some spicy aftershave, and apple-y shampoo, and just _Doyle_...

There wasn't much in Bodmin that lent itself to an uninterupted isolated stay, but Murdoch had always fended for himself, lived off the land whenever he could, had never liked to rely on anyone else. An empty house, owners away with their family for the holidays? Maybe... But if so it wouldn't be a place with neighbours, which let out the town itself, and if that was where he wanted to stay...

_She always said we should be home for Christmas_ , Murdoch had confided in him once, long ago, when the Congo heat had seared them through as they drank a beer to distant celebrations and snow, _it's the one thing I promised I'd never forget_.

He'd looked her up in the phone book before they left London, Sarah Dungey, but she was long dead, and perhaps Murdoch, who'd been given his father's name and hated him for it, had used it anyway, was the last of that line, for there were no other Dungeys, now, in Bodmin. 

A nurse, like her mother, and her mother before her, Bodie remembered, trying to think, as he gazed at the pale map with its squares and lines and contours, all the way back to those long nights in Africa, to whispered conversations that sometimes held the boredom at bay, to the life of a man he'd not thought of in years. She hadn't worked for the hospital though, he'd said that much, she'd worked somewhere... His eyes rose suddenly to the darkness above them, to the black space above the houses to the north west.

"Bodmin jail."

"Eh?" Doyle shifted slightly to look at him, and for a moment their faces were close, so close that their breath played together in the air between their mouths, their lips...

"His mum used to work for the prison, that's why I knew he'd come back here. For Christmas." He said it reluctantly, a secret long kept, and now broken, though only to Doyle. It was practically like whispering to himself, telling Doyle. 

"But the prison's been ruined for years, she doesn't still...?"

Bodie pulled properly away, reluctantly, shook his head. "No, but he told me once he promised her, he'd always go home for Christmas. Far as I know he only missed it once."

"Even though she's dead. She must be dead by now, he's - what, fifteen years older than you are?"

"Yeah. Well, we've all got our superstitions and spooks, haven't we?" He tried to sound jolly about it, bluff and hale and unconcerned. 

"You and ladders?"

It must have worked then. "Me and ladders," he conceded, as he never had before, because he _knew_ that Murdoch would be up there. Shame he couldn't leave him to it, Murdoch was alright, but Cowley'd hit the roof if he tried that one on - there were times when he had way too much belief in Bodie's abilities.

"Lead on then, McDuff," Doyle said, folding the map, "Let's see if we can get him back to London and us back to bed before dawn."

_If only_ , Bodie thought, _if only_.

"Yours or mine?" he asked, with a lisp and a flutter of his eyelashes, and then he pushed back into first, took them back onto the road. 

The streets threaded through houses on either side, rows of bright yellow light leaking around curtains, porches with the occasional wreath of holly shining from the door, now and then the glimpse of a Christmas tree, or a fire puffing away against the wind and rain. He turned onto smaller roads once, twice, and then they were abruptly there, driving up a slight rise until it was all around them, Bodmin jail, darkness against the darkness and nothing moving but themselves and the weather.

_"Fucking hell,"_ Doyle managed, eyes wide as he stared around the headlight-illuminated courtyard, and rummaged in the glovebox for torches, passed one to Bodie. "Not many home comforts around here, are there?"

"Murdoch doesn't need 'em - he probably prefers it like this to when they had a house."

"Ultimate army grunt, was he?"

"Ultimate survivor. You could put him anywhere, with nothing but a knife, and he'd live off the land and be happier than you or me will ever be."

That earned him an odd look. "Well I'm not all that happy right now, I grant you."

"Come on then," Bodie took a final look around, then switched off the headlights and opened his door. "Let's get on with it."

They went carefully, the pouring rain enough to make even solid pavements and grasses slick and untrustworthy, never mind the rubble-strewn muck that they were crossing. There was a clear entrance, for all the place was obviously unloved and unkept, probably used by teenagers and the unfussy but lovelorn, and they were able to get inside easily enough, to shine their torches across the inevitable grafitti, and then, as they worked their way deeper into the maze of corridors and cells, the bare walls and rusting detritus that once been beds, shelves, floors - the loss, surely, of all hope. 

"And our lot think they've got it rough," Doyle said, as he played his light across a few links of rusted chain still holding fast to one wall. "Don't know they're born, do they?"

"They're still slopping out," Bodie felt obliged to point out, surprised because it was usually Doyle on at him about the callous prisons simply teaching the villains new tricks. "Not that much different."

"Upstairs or down?" Doyle stopped in front of a twisted stone staircase, pieces of rusted metal spiking at them in all directions, more lethal to a wrong step than lack of any railing at all. "I'm not convinced he's here, you know."

Bodie wasn't either, having seen what it was like inside, but then Murdoch was a funny bloke, and if he'd had the run of this place when he was a kid... "He could be watching us right now and we'd never know. He's good - better than you and me together, Martin, Macklin..."

"As long as he's not the same size as Towser. Let's try _down_ first, not as far to fall when this lot gives way... How many floors d'you reckon?"

They made their way down, step by careful, slippery step, then back into the warren of cells and stonery. There was no sign of any disturbance, nothing to suggest that anyone had been there in the last century.

"This was a working prison barely fifty years ago," Doyle said thoughtfully, as they steered around yet another hole in the floor and peered into yet another tiny chamber. He stepped inside, grimaced at the water running freely down the far wall. "So much for _building them properly back then_..."

"They used to execute the inmates too," Bodie told him, with a wicked glance, "Bury 'em somewhere in here - we could be standing on their graves right now..."

"You'll find your grave in a minute if you don't... _shit_!"

Bodie spun around just in time to see it, to see Doyle practically floating in midair like the Roadrunner, or Elmer Fudd, a surprised look on his face, and then he was falling, down - down where the floor had not been solid floor at all, had been something else, something diguised, something...

" _Doyle_!" Bodie threw himself to the ground at the edge of the hole, cast his torch desperately into its depths. " _Ray_!"

There was a moan from below, must be nearly twelve feet below, and then something in the murk moved, lurched upwards, resolved itself into his Doyle, agent 4.5, alive at least, and hopefully even _well_.

"Ray, are you alright? Talk to me!"

"Fine..." Doyle's voice was strangled, and he broke into a fit of coughing that ended in another groan. "Christ, I think I've done me ankle in." He wiped at his face, brushed at his arms and legs, and chest - everything still in working order then - then winced on a indrawn breath and reached towards his foot. "I think I've _really_ done me ankle in."

"Yeah?" Bodie left him to it for a minute, shone the torch around. It wasn't a room, barely five foot in diameter, and round, the walls brick-smooth, which probably meant that a decent - _uninjured_ \- climber could get up and down easily enough, but otherwise unmarked. When he turned the torch upwards, the beam found the same chamber cut through the floors above them, it's light travelling on and on, uninterupted, until it petered out into nothingness. "Bloody good job we _did_ go down instead of up."

"Oh yeah, I'm ecstatic..."

"Bit creepy, innit?" he said, relief that Doyle was alright, alright enough to be grumpy, sending him to tease. "Anyone down there with you? Skeletons propped in the corner? Shadowy figures..."

"Shut up, Bodie."

"Be just the place this - they used to hang people here for stealing loaves of bread, and knocking off copper's helmets, and fiddling with sheep... All those wronged ghosts, just waiting for someone to come along, and..."

"Shut _up_ Bodie...."

" _Shut up, Bodie_ ," he mimicked back happily. "Right, come on then, what can you see? You still got your flashlight? There's got to be some way out down there, we've just got to match up both sides. They didn't go in for _oubliettes_ a hundred years ago, you know."

He watched the play of Doyle's torch against the darkness, making sure he kept his own grip firm on the door frame behind him, in case the floor should collapse further. 

"Can't see anything, it's all bricked up... and... _ah!_ \- I think my ankle's broken..."

"On a bit backwards, is it?"

"Feels al... _ah_...right, but..." There was a sharp hiss of breath again, as Doyle explored his injured foot.

"Well if you'd stop playing with it..." Bodie said, shining his own torch around the ruins again. You'd think a place like this would have a length or two of chain lying around, but no, there was nothing but rubble and weeds and puddles. He was dry on his side of the hole but even as he watched, one of the pools of rainwater by the further wall overflowed, channelled itself down the nearest slope, and began tipping into Doyle's pit. 

There was a splashing, and a harshly whispered curse below, then " _Bodie!_ "

"Yeah?"

A deep breath. "I've lost the fucking torch."

Bodie aimed his own light back down the hole, saw Doyle standing now, leaning against the wall, one foot lifted from the ground, head turned upwards, eyes scrunched closed. "Alright, keep your socks on, I'm calling the local services, we'll get you out of there, sunshine." He stood up, flicked at the channels on his RT until he found the emergency band. "Agent requesting assistance, over?"

Static. 

"Agent requesting urgent assistance - anyone reading?"

"This is Bodmin Emergency, go ahead agent - which service are you?"

_Thank god._ "Bodie, CI5 - I've got a trapped and injured man up at the ruined Bodmin jail, can you call up some rescue equipment and an ambulance? Possible broken ankle."

"Is he in imminent danger?"

"Only of freezing his... fingers off. Why?"

"We've an emergency on up at the Pits, the boys will be tied up there for another hour and a half or so - can you wait that long? If not I'll try Liskeard, but it'll take them nearly as long to get here to be honest."

Damn. "We'll hold on, I'll let you know if the situation changes. Thanks Bodmin."

"Stay on this frequency, if I can get someone to you sooner I will."

There was silence from the pit. "Doyle? You hear that?"

"Yeah..."

"You alright?"

"Have to be, won't I?" But there was a shiver to his voice that Bodie didn't like. 

"Look, I'll see if I can rustle up a neighbour, someone'll have a ladder, or some rope, or..."

The voice came from out of the dark, out of the dark behind him, and it knew his name.

"Bodie."

_Fuck_! Bodie spun, gun out and aimed at the empty doorway. That wasn't Doyle, that was... "Murdoch." 

"Hello, Bodie."

There was more splashing from below - it must be a hell of a lot wetter than Bodie'd seen to make all that noise, he noted in one corner of his mind - and then silence. Doyle would be swearing again, silently, so as not to alert an enemy, because the only help he could give was luring the bloke into the hole with him.

"Hello Murdoch," Bodie said back, more to reassure Doyle than anything else. Murdoch wouldn't hurt him, not after all they'd been through - although he'd once thought that about Jimmy Keller too. Prison did funny things to a man. "Happy Christmas."

"And to you, Bodie, and to you." There was the _click_ of a gun's safety mechanism being engaged, then a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the doorway. "What's brought you up here, then?"

"You have to ask?" Murdoch looked fit as ever, thin and wiry, but his face was gaunt, as though he'd been sick, maybe. Or maybe just missing fresh air and freedom. It would go harder with him than with most, being locked up all day, every day. His hair had gone grey too, he looked older than Bodie had ever imagined he would.

"Well... You're still with that heavy mob, then."

Bodie shrugged. "Pay's steadier than Krivas ever managed."

"Who's your friend down the well?"

Of course he knew. "A friend."

"Same mob?"

Bodie shrugged again.

"I'll help you get him out."

He blinked at that. "Why would you do that?"

Murdoch stared at him for a long moment, his unnerving stare of old, _that_ hadn't changed, at least. "Not nice to be stuck in a hole. And not here. There're rats. Good eating, but not good company until you get to know them. He's hurt, isn't he, can't climb out himself."

Bodie snapped the safety on his own gun, put it away. "You got a rope?"

"Rope, belay, two men can do what one man can't. Two men..."

It was a genuine offer, Bodie knew it was a genuine offer, and he knew what the offer meant. 

He nodded, in the yellowed light from his torch. "We'd appreciate it."

"Back in a mo," Murdoch said, and then he vanished. 

"Doyle?" Bodie peered over the edge, shone his torch down. "You alright?"

"That was...?" More splashing, and shivers still in Doyle's voice.

"Yeah. Where's all that come from?" He could just make it out, a brown shine to the bottom of the pit, constant movement, glow rocking from side to side like the water in a bath, and it looked about ankle deep. He followed it around until he found the source - _sources_ \- a steady flow from not just the rainwater on their own level, down the side of the pit and onto Doyle's floor, but from what looked like three other runnels from the level below, none of it draining, just splishing and splashing merrily into one big pool around Doyle's feet. 

"Everywhere," Doyle confirmed. "By the time you get back with a ladder I'll have floated me way out."

"Hang in there, mate, Murdoch's gone off to get rope."

"You'll have to pull me out," Doyle warned, "I'm not going to be much help with this bloody ankle."

"Do better than that, he reckons he's got climbing gear as well..."

"Useful little bloke, your old mate."

"Murdoch's alright," Bodie said, because it was true. 

"Get in with a bad crowd, did he?"

"That's right." Stupid bastard had been caught alright, and it wasn't hard to blackmail one of their lot. It must have been blackmail, because he'd never have worked with more than one other person for any other reason. "You think of it when you're swinging on his rope, eh?"

"Just don't forget what we're here for."

Footsteps behind him, and Bodie turned his torch away from Doyle again. There was a soft _szshhh_ as a coil of nylon rope was dropped to the ground beside him, then a clinking of metal on metal, another whisper of sound as the belay device was threaded along. Bodie let him work in silence, watched as he scanned the walls and floor for a connection point, tested a hook and pulled it out of the wall completely, rusted through, found another one nearer the floor that held firm. Murdoch slid the rope through, tugged back on it with all his weight, then gave one end to Bodie, who wrapped it around his waist, and checked the belay device was running smoothly. He carefully didn't think about what the hooks had meant for the original occupants of the cells.

"I'm not sure I trust that," Murdoch said, with a nod to the wall, "so you keep yourself well braced, alright?"

Bodie nodded, planted his feet wide and firmly on either side of the narrow doorway. He'd use it as his first support point, there was a loose stone in the floor that would give him grip _there_ , and if worst came to worst he could grab at that bush to the left, already looking firmly established. It wasn't the most conventional arrangement he'd used, but it'd do. Barely needed to bother, mind, Doyle was no heavyweight, he'd be fine, out of there before you could say _Cowley_.

"Alright down there?" Murdoch called over the edge of the hole. "Have you up in no time."

"Yeah, just dandy, thanks."

Gracious as ever, Bodie thought, as Murdoch dropped the rope down, and then, despite himself, he gasped, because Murdoch had sat himself down as well, legs dangling, turned himself around and then vanished into the pit. _Fuck..._. 

The mad bastard must be climbing down to help.

Nothing he could do about it, stuck here at the top, one eye on the wall hook, waiting to feel Doyle's weight through the rope, around his arms, nothing at all... and then there it was, welcome as life itself, a sudden solid connection between them. He pulled, the rope feeding back his way now, pulled and pulled and pulled, and then there was a hand at the edge of the pit, another pull and there was the top of Doyle's head, an arm and then another, and then Murdoch was back up and helping him out, untwining the rope from Doyle's legs where it had been tied to form a kind of seat, and Doyle was lying back on the ground, breathing heavily.

Bodie let the rope fall free, stepped properly back into the cell. _All over_ , he thought, watching Doyle's face, his eyes closed as he caught his breath, forehead furrowed, most likely in pain, seeing his chest rise and fall. It was all over yet again and they'd survived.

"Partners, then?" Murdoch asked softly, from close beside him. Bodie hadn't even seen him move.

Bodie turned to look at him, deep into that gaze, nodded. "Thanks," he added, after a moment, when he could get the word out.

Murdoch gave him another one of his stares, then reached into his jacket, pulled out a battered cloth bag, and then a roll of bandage from inside that. He didn't say anything to Doyle, but crouched down at his feet, tilted his head at him for permission.

Doyle looked up at Bodie in question, and Bodie nodded again, knelt down at his head and put one hand on his shoulder. Doyle reached up and gripped Bodie's arm with one hand, squeezed tight when Murdoch pulled off one battered trainer, and Bodie squeezed back. He tried not to hear the involuntary whimper of pain, to feel the tremors running through Doyle's body as he braced himself not to shiver. He was wet from his waist down, and in splashes up his shirt and jacket, from the original fall. They'd get him down to the Capri as soon as Murdoch was done bandaging his ankle, then a quick drive to the hospital and he'd be right as rain and worrying about what Cowley was going to say...

"I'll be off, then," Murdoch said abruptly, standing up and reaching for the rope, coiling it rapidly away around his elbow. 

Bodie looked up at him, reluctant to let Doyle go for a moment longer, not needing to now. For the third, and final time he locked gazes with Murdoch, staring back through a dozen shared missions, a hundred nights in Africa, a thousand breaths for each other and the members of their squad. All past now, all gone.

"Be fast," was all he could say in warning, because Cowley wouldn't just let him go, not when he'd been especially asked to help, "Stay low."

Murdoch half-smiled. "You know me," he said, and then he was gone.

"Bodie..." Doyle was a weight and a warmth against his knee, and then he levered himself upright, moved until he was resting back against the wall, bandaged foot cushioned on his own trainer, raised from the hard ground. Bodie looked back at him through the pale light, found himself grinning again.

"Season of goodwill, eh Ray?" He ran a light hand over Doyle's foot, wanting to feel that it was dry, that they were safe.

"Yeah, but he didn't have to help, he could have just left, gone right to ground. Why'd he...?"

_Safe again, they were safe again..._

Bodie leaned forward slightly. "Because of this," he said, and he leaned in the rest of the way, rested their lips together for just a moment. Then he moved, kissed him, kissed Doyle, just lightly, so as not to scare him, because whichever way it went, he knew that this moment was going to last forever for them both. Doyle might be shocked, might push him away, hit out, never let him hear the end of it. Or...

Doyle kissed him back.

When they separated, after a long while, maybe as scared to stop as they had been to begin, there was a smile on Doyle's lips too. He plucked at his shirt, sodden and mud-crusted both, smelling of soil and age, and things less pleasant.

"You pick your moment, don't you?" 

"Wouldn't want to be predictable," Bodie began, still trying to work out how it was all going to go, whether that was it, that was all he'd get, or... "You know what Cowley says..."

"Shut up, Bodie," Doyle said, pulling them back into another kiss, and so Bodie did.

 

_December 2009_


End file.
